Shattered Pieces
by WhimsicallyAwkward
Summary: He pointed his arrow at the Shadeslayer once, but he didn't pull. How so very different it would have been if he had pulled. The Dragon Rider who wouldn't grow. The Dragon Rider who wouldn't rebel. He can only feel grateful. Even after everything. As canon as possible/OC


**Author: WhimsicallyAwkward**

**Story: Little Pieces**

**Rating: T - for dark moments, character death**

**A/N: So this is something I had an idea for a while ago and jotted down a few words. It took a while for the whole thing to come together, but I'm really glad I wrote it. This is my story in the Inheritance Cycle universe, and I hope you like it :) And a thank you to all who supported my first Inheritance Cycle work.**

* * *

He was just a boy when Garrett first saw him.

Broad face, and wide eyes. He was just a boy. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. A farmer probably - judging by the muscles in his arms, and the dirt on his hands.

He travels with an older man. Hooked nose, gray hair. His uncle.

Garrett is nothing more than a struggling to make ends meet father of three. But there is a war brewing, and he finds himself on the roof of his neighbor's house - a bow and arrow in his hands.

He is pointing his weapon at the boy, feeling nausea welling up in his belly. The boy isn't but a couple of years older than Garrett's own son.

He doesn't want to shoot him. He hopes for nothing more than that he doesn't have to.

Because he doesn't think he can, and he doesn't want to face that he's too much of a coward to save his town. His _family_.

Then he hears the bloodthirsty curses of the man next to him - the blacksmith - and realizes that he has nothing to worry about.

There are roughly forty other men with arrows pointed at the boy. He wouldn't have to be the one to kill him.

He still feels sick, and Garrett knows that he would still be a coward. A coward for sitting back and watching the slaughtering of a couple of travelers.

If that is what they are.

So Garrett, ashamed and scared, points his weapon at the older man instead of the boy. Is this any better?

But Garrett has nothing to worry about, for they _are_ just travelers.

He climbs down from the roof. He approaches, then runs to get them some of their necessities. He remembers the black gloves, specifically. Garrett doesn't really know why he fixates on them. Just a pair of gloves for the boy. Maybe to protect against callused palms.

His gut is nagging at him, instincts picking up on something beyond his brain's knowledge.

And when he goes back out to hand the boy the gloves, he looks at his hands.

Dirty. Very dirty along the palms. Nothing unusual for traveling farmers, but he looks harder at one of the boy's palms.

There is something there, something beneath that dirt. Garrett sees a hint of a shine - then the boy yanks his hands back, his eyes slightly panicked.

Odd. So very odd. Garrett meets those wide brown eyes. Full of youth and inexperience, but something else lurking. Something powerful. Something the boy himself hasn't discovered yet.

Garrett is an instinctual man, and he's learned to trust his gut. His gut tells him this boy is powerful, and the hair on his arms rises.

He almost alerts someone to his feeling. But he thinks about ten minutes earlier, when he was on the roof pointing his arrow at a boy no older than sixteen. He thinks about that - and he keeps his mouth shut. Garrett looks at his shoes. He listens as their horses trot away, and the men fall back in order.

How so very different it would have been if he'd opened his mouth. The dragon rider who wouldn't grow. The Dragon Rider who wouldn't rebel. Garrett feels grateful that his lips stayed pressed together. Even after everything.

* * *

Not even a fortnight after the boy and his uncle had passed through - warning of Urgals and impending war - the soldiers hit their town.

They came, marching in five lines. Over three hundred of them, in full armor.

Garrett pulled his son back, nudged him into his mothers arms. His wife pulled their children into the house. Staying safely out of sight.

Garrett made himself stand straight on his porch. He watched resignedly as the front soldier unrolled a scroll. Every person in their village gathered around.

"Townspeople: Galbatorix has decreed that one able-bodied man from every family is to follow us to Ura'baen to receive the honor of fighting for your country. In the instance that a family is unable to offer a healthy man over the age of fifteen, another family will offer a second man to compensate. When I call your family's name, stand before me. Bring nothing. We will leave as soon as we have reached out quota."

Garrett feels the numbness in his limbs, and he hears his wife's muffled sob behind the door. He was the only man qualified in their family. Her father was an old, one-legged man. Their son was only twelve.

None of that mattered anyway. Garrett would go even if Barn had his leg, and his son was of age.

His wife throws the door open, her wails echoed from mouths of other women.

He pulls her to him, holds her to his chest for what he knows is the last time.

The soldier's voice is all he hears. Name after name falling relentlessly into the air.

Garrett crouches, takes all of his children in his arms. Their tears soak his shirt, and he never wants to let them go. But the soldiers are here to take him away.

There it is. His name, falling into the air.

His children are crying, his wife is crying, and Garrett hopes his legs don't give out.

He doesn't look back. Not once. He takes the scroll, and pretends to look at it - he was never taught to read.

Then he falls into line with the men from his village, stares at the ground.

If he looks at his house, his family, he'll break. So when they leave he never looks back.

When his town is nothing but a blur in the distance, he thinks of the boy. He's not sure why, really. But he thinks of suppressed power, a silver palm, and the warning to leave.

* * *

It's cold in the army. No family, no friends. Everyone from his village was assigned different things, in different places.

Only Julian is assigned to Gil'ead with him. They stuck together, but last week Julian was slain at the Shade's hand.

So Garrett keeps his mouth shut, feels his heart turn cold.

He's assigned to the prison. He stays here all day everyday. So many whippings he's seen, so many starving prisoners.

There's an elf here. A real live _elf_. Garrett had always figured them stories.

But she _is_ an elf. Her ears are points, her face almost feline. She's powerful, reminds him of the boy with the silver palm. But he was human, and her hands aren't silver so Garrett shoves thoughts of the boy away.

Durza is twisted madness, eyes gleaming at pain he causes. He enters the elf's cell, and always leaves in a rage - sometimes taking in out on soldiers. So Garrett and the other men give him a wide berth.

Garrett and his fellow soldiers are sometimes chosen to carry the elf from place to place, but Durza usually keeps them all away.

Garrett's relieved. He's seen the damage Durza has inflicted on the elf. The marks on her back enrage him, so he's glad that he only interacts with her sporadically.

He doesn't know what he'd do if he had to face her torture, and his anger more than he already has to. He only knows that it would probably result in his death by the Shade's hand.

Julian had learned that the hard way.

He had been as repulsed by the elf's treatment as Garrett. In a subtle defiance, he'd placed a white rose in the elf's cell. A way to encourage her, he'd whispered to Garrett. A way to remind her that not everyone is a monster.

He'd paid for it later. Julian had planned on sneaking the rose out before Durza entered again, but someone had slipped word to the Shade. Durza had ambushed Julian when he slipped in the cell.

He'd killed him. Garrett had heard his screams, and been unable to do anything. So now Julian's wife, and his _five _children would never see him again.

That can't happen to Garrett. He has to get home. He has to see his family.

When he had first been sent off, he'd resigned himself to never going home. But then he'd been assigned here - away from combat - and he was determined to keep his head down and serve his time.

Sometimes, on long days when Garrett has seen too much, he thinks back to the warning given by the boy and his uncle. They'd told them to leave. Told them all to leave, and they hadn't.

It had been their downfall.

Almost every able-bodied man had left their village. They all were all sentenced to the army, forced to face death. They had left the women, the old, and the young to fend for themselves.

What would happen to them? How would they survive the war, or the Urgals?

What if they couldn't make it?

Garrett made himself stop wondering. This was what he couldn't do. If he was to make it out of here, he couldn't let fears, and worries drag him down.

So that's what he's doing when everything changes. Keeping his head down, not letting himself think.

He's heard the whispers. The rumors passed through the men. Rumors of a Dragon Rider in the land. A Rider who hadn't yet declared his loyalty to Galbatorix.

A Rider who could bring the Empire's downfall.

They were preposterous rumors. The chances of a Dragon Rider once again on the land…well, they weren't very good.

Garrett used to pay attention to the rumors when they came around, but he knew now that they were started by desperate people looking for hope.

He wouldn't let himself get drawn into that. The hope it would bring would help - for a while. Then the truth would ring down, leaving you more desperate than before.

So he doesn't believe them until he overhears Durza himself talking about it.

"_Do you have him yet?"_

"_No, sir."_

"_Why is it so hard to you, to bring in a simple boy?"_

"_He's - he's very good at hiding, sir. But we have a group of Urgal's who are after them."_

"_If you haven't brought the Rider to me within a fortnight, I will make sure you regret it."_

Rider.

There really is a new Rider on the land.

An unclaimed Rider, not loyal to King Galbatorix.

His stomach is in knots. His hands are shaking. Despite himself, hope blooms fiercely in his chest.

A Rider! A Rider who could once and for all overthrow their King.

Oh, if only.

He wonders who it is. He wonders how it happened. The legends about the Rider's are watered down to next-to-nothing. Garrett has only heard a few stories about the ancient Riders and dragons. He doesn't know much at all.

But he does know that hope is in his heart, and that he _has_ to get through this.

When he thinks about the Rider, the image of the boy with the wide eyes and with the shining palm always pops up behind his eyes.

He's not really sure why. He knows that the odds of the boy being the Rider are next to none. And wouldn't a Rider be more…more, something? Older? Stronger?

But sometimes the boy and his suppressed power creep into his thoughts. Along with dragons, and war.

* * *

Several days after Garrett overheard the mutterings in the hall, the Shade announced the truth of the Rider to the men.

A Dragon Rider, returned to the land. A Dragon Rider that was in the process of being tracked down.

"It is a very real possibility," he said, "that the boy will be brought to this very prison if he is found somewhere close by."

So everyone was expected to do their duties. If anyone was found slacking off, or acting as a traitor, they would be executed.

Terrified, not one soldier mentioned the Dragon Rider aloud. Lest they be called supporters of the outlaw.

One day, weeks later, Durza was positively gleeful. The Shade smiling was one of the scariest things Garrett had ever seen.

Durza is happy and that can mean nothing good.

When the boy is brought in, he is almost unsurprised.

Garrett is on night duty when the orders to report to the entrance are issued. He's among the first outside.

Ten or more Urgals await him, and in the arms of one of them is a boy.

It's dark, and his face is turned away. Garrett doesn't get that good of a look at him. He looks small, crumpled the way he is; held in the arms of a beast.

Durza is almost bouncing.

"This, soldiers, is the Dragon Rider. You are to take him to the cell at the end of the right hall. I want the key brought to me when he's locked away."

The Dragon Rider!

Garrett's hopes sink through the floor.

Garrett and three other men are handed the boy. He gets handed the upper body. The boy's head lulls back;his face revealed by the light.

It's different. Less baby fat, and more raw bone. It's dirty and worn, but still recognizable.

Broad, and strong jawed. Garrett inconspicuously lifts his eyelid, and sees the brown eyes.

Garrett's heart jumps to his throat, his legs shake. He keeps his face blank, keeps his body moving.

Oh god. This poor boy. He's no more than sixeen, he's a farmer, and now he's here. In a prison, his face half-starved.

They deposit him in his cell, leave the ordered amount of bread.

Garrett volunteers to be stationed at the door.

When he's left alone, he looks in on the boy.

He remembers the day of the two travelers. He recalls how different this boy was then. The man who was traveling with him isn't here, and Garrett wonders what has happened to him. Dead probably.

Killed by the Shade, or some other evil.

Would it have been more merciful for Garrett to have pulled the arrow on that rooftop? More merciful, to have ended this boy's suffering before it started? Or to have ended his life when he saw his palm and the power in his eyes?

From that moment Garrett had known there was something about the boy. He's known at some level, what the boy was.

It's hard to put together. The farmer boy and the dragon rider. He stares at the young, labor hardened body in the cell, and tries to connect it to the myths of the riders. It's hard to imagine.

But Garrett can see the glinting of the hand, so he _knows_.

This boy is their greatest chance, but he will die in this prison.

* * *

The boy rouses some several hours later.

Garrett sees him blink his eyes. Sees him slowly come to his surroundings.

He's sluggish and drugged. Garrett uses all the strength within himself to resist telling him to not eat the bread.

And it takes every ounce of his strength to make himself tell Durza that the boy is awake. Durza would kill him if he didn't. He pictures his family. He has to make it back to them, so he goes to the Shade.

What is it to him that this boy lives anyway? He doesn't even know his name. The truth of that statement rings true, and he has to beat down the wish to ask.

* * *

When the boy breaks out, Garrett is in the hallway.

Garrett sees him cut down two soldiers easily, sees the Rider turn to him.

The boy doesn't recognize him, and he moves forward to Garrett. And Garrett, who has been thinking only of surviving, doesn't move.

He won't raise arms against the boy. He won't. This is his line, and he won't cross it.

Garrett closes his eyes. He pictures his family in his head, and never sees the blow coming.

* * *

He wakes up later, cold on the floor.

The building has stopped shaking. The elf, the boy, and the dragon are gone. Garrett hears only the panicked running of the soldiers on the roof.

There are broken bodies around him. Soldiers cut down around him.

He can only think of the Dragon Rider. Who is about fifteen years old, and has the blood of men on his hands. He thinks of their king, and the dark kingdom, and the Varden.

There are things happening. Things so much bigger than him. Than his family.

He can feel it changing. This Dragon Rider will bring change. This Dragon Rider will end the kingdom.

This Dragon Rider could save his family.

Garrett gets up. He finds the men, he reports to duty. He does what he has to do. Just as the Dragon Rider will do what he has to do.

Garrett will play a part in the turning of the times as surely as the Dragon Rider.

He will find his family again, and he will take them to safety. To the Varden. Somehow. He wants to see the Dragon Rider. He wants to know his name.

* * *

He's spent months serving the army.

He gets been recognized as one of the best soldiers. He's promoted.

He goes home. It's his only request. He wants to bring his family to the city. They agree. Grudgingly, they agree.

So he gets six men, and they travel to his home.

It takes days, and three of his men die from an Urgal attack.

He can barely hold himself together. He just wants to see his wife; just wants to hold his kids. Then he'll take them to the Varden. He and these three men that he handpicked. They want nothing more than to leave the army as well.

They've lost their families - or they have no family - and they want to help him find his.

Then they want to leave.

So they journey to his home.

When they start nearing it, he realizes something is wrong. He can feel it inside himself.

They keep going, but a few miles out Garrett tells the men to stop.

He can see the town now, and it doesn't look good. The men, looking at the town in the distance, agree. They let him go alone.

It's gone. It's all gone. The building are burned, and the streets are abandoned.

Garrett falls to his knees and doesn't rise for hours.

He cries like men aren't supposed to cry. His hope splinters, and his mind cracks.

He finds his house. His home.

It's gone. Completely destroyed. There's nothing but burned ash in its place.

The men find him kneeling in front of his house. They try to drag him up, try to take him back.

He kills all three of them. He does it without thinking. They are taking him away from his loved ones, so they are the enemy.

He's left standing over three broken bodies with red soaking his hands.

All honor he has is gone.

He can't even remember that man on the roof. The man he used to be. That man is gone.

* * *

Garrett is left with nothing to do but go back.

He returns. He spins a story about Urgals killing all of his men before they arrived at his home. He tells them he never made it.

They take him back quickly, no questions.

Garrett clings only to the thought of the Dragon Rider. It's all the hope he has to get through the times.

He still hopes to see the Dragon Rider again.

He doesn't address him as boy anymore. He barely notes the transition; thinking only that it happened with the loss of innocence in himself and the Rider.

* * *

Garrett has nothing left now. No family, no life. He works for Galbatorix, he kills for Galbatorix. He has only a hope for a better life.

He missed his chance to escape to the Varden. He lost his mind when he lost his family. He killed his friends, and he returned to hell.

He keeps marching with the hope that one day the Dragon Rider will make the world better.

The boy with the wide brown eyes doesn't look like much, but Garrett knows the power he has inside him.

Garrett knows that he and the Varden will eventually overtake Galbatorix. He knows that he might not make it, but he doesn't care.

* * *

They leave for the Burning Plains. Thousands of soldiers.

They're given only a vague idea of the reasons why.

The Varden. Rebellion. Nothing serious, they are assured.

Garrett knows that it has to be serious. They are marching toward the Dragon Rider. They are marching toward their death.

There is a whisper among the higher ranking soldiers. A whisper that Galbatorix has another dragon, but no one knows for sure.

Garrett figures it's true. He prays for the Dragon Rider.

* * *

When they arrive on the plains, they set their tents up opposite the warriors of the Varden.

Garrett sees the Rider's dragon for the first time. It's big, and a brilliant blue. It's death covered in scales, and Garrett feels more confident that it will bring the destruction or the Empire at the end of it's claws.

Garrett also knows that it will bring hundreds of these men's destruction. Maybe even his.

He can't see the Rider. That's all he wants before he dies.

Hundreds of soldiers die to some strange magic, or poisoning. Their screams fill the air, and Garrett tries to feel sympathetic, but all he feels is relieved.

Less for the Varden to handle.

* * *

When the fighting starts, it's the bloodiest he's ever been in.

He tries to fight without fighting. He wants the Varden to win, but he has to live. He has to live to see the Dragon Rider one last time. To know the name of the Empire's savior.

The name of someone who might save future families.

He's locked in a sword fight with a helmeted Varden. They dance around until the Varden man's helmet falls off. Garrett freezes.

With a trained soldier it would have costed him his life. But this is the farthest from a trained soldier.

It's Benny. Who grew up along Garrett. Benny, who was passed over for the army because his brother volunteered.

Garrett throws off his helmet, watches the shock cross Benny's face.

"Garrett?" he breathed, eyes wide. "What -"

"How are you alive!?"

He looks confused, and Garrett grabs him by the throat.

"How are you here? I saw the town! How are you alive?"

Benny looks terrified. He doesn't recognize the man Garrett has become.

"We got out! After the soldiers came! We knew they might come back, or that the Urgals would get us. We traveled until we came across an elf who secured us a safe trip to -"

He gasped, trying to breathe. Garrett loosened his grip. "And?!"

" - the Varden. Most of us made it here."

"My family?! My kids, my wife! Did they make it?"

He nodded frantically. "They're all here. They made it."

The floor drops beneath Garrett's feet. Everything is upside down, and he releases Benny. Tear fall over his cheeks, and he croaks, "Are they okay?"

"Yes. They miss you, but they're okay."

Garrett struggles to breathe. "And Julian's?"

Benny looks confused, "Julian?"

"His family? Did they make it?"

"Is he here too?"

"No, he's dead. _Did they make it_?"

"Yes. Well, most of them. His littlest boy didn't make the journey."

Garrett feels the pain of his friend's lost child.

Garrett looks at the fighting around them. One of them could be cut down any second. He drags Benny over to a crevice in a rock, yells over the fighting.

"Tell his family…tell them that their father died true to himself. Tell them that he died a hero, he died doing a good thing. They should be proud."

Benny blinks stupidly at him. "But you can tell them yourself. You're here now. Your family is here?" He ends it like a question.

Garrett shakes his head so quickly it hurts. "No. No. They can't see me like this. I'm…I'm not a good man. I have blood on my hands, I have no honor."

"Garrett, they just want you. You fought for Galbatorix, but you had to. It's okay."

He looks worried, and Garrett backs away from him.

"No. My family can not see me like this. Don't…don't tell them I was here. Tell Julian's family, but no one else. My family can't know."

"Garrett, it doesn't matter!"

"Yes it does! Yes it does. I am a disgraced man, unworthy of them. They are better without me. I am broken."

He reaches for Garrett, but Garrett is already gone.

* * *

Garrett enters into the battle again. He charges mindlessly forward. He wants only to reach the big sapphire dragon.

He can see the Dragon Rider at its side. He's dressed for war, and his blade is blood-red.

He tries to reach them, but the Varden close in. He takes a sword in his side, and he screams. He kills the Varden soldier and keeps moving.

Garrett stops in front of the brutal duo. He stops as close as he can without falling prey to the giant's claws.

He falls to his knees, his helmet in the dirt along with his sword. His hand holds his side. He has only minutes.

The Dragon Rider steps forward, taking his own helmet off.

Garrett can no longer hear around him. The fighting continues, but it's just him and the boy.

The boy Garrett almost killed.

His dragon protects him, and the boy shows no worry for the danger surrounding him.

He is very different. Garrett wouldn't recognize him if not for the same brown eyes.

He looks like the elf that lived so long in the prison.

He's wary of Garrett; the soldier collapsed in front of him.

He holds his sword out.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

Garrett has nothing. Garrett has no pride, no family. The Empire ruined him, and his blood spills around him.

"Don't let it happen again."

The boy's slanted eyes narrow.

"The pain. The misery. Don't let what happened to me, happen again. Don't let what happened to Julian happen again."

The Dragon Rider's sword dips lower. His confusion shows.

"Do you remember me, Dragon Rider?"

"Should I?"

Garrett laughs, "No. We have met only in passing. It has plagued me far more than you."

He pauses, finds the strength to continue.

"I brought you the gloves. You came into my town. I pointed an arrow at you, and I gave you gloves."

His eyes widen, his sword lowers more.

"I...remember. You were…you were very different then."

"Yes, well, the empire made me join the army soon after you left. I saw you again. In Gil'ead. You knocked me out when you broke out of the prison. We have always met on the opposite sides, Dragon Rider. And now I come to you, as a broken man, but a man on your side."

The Rider's eyes are dark. "I'm sorry."

"You have done nothing, boy. Galbatorix did this to me. Durza did this to me. _I _did this to me. I'm asking you to stop it. Don't let it happen again. To another man, to another family. You and your beast must defeat the King."

He struggles to breathe, presses hard on his side.

"I do not have long. I ask of you only one more thing."

The Rider steps forward, reaches his hand out to Garrett's side.

Garrett pulls away. The boy looks at him gently. "I can heal you."

"No!"

His hand falters.

"I do not want that. I am ready to die, Dragon Rider. I have nothing more to live for. My family is here. They are safe. They do not need me. I am not worthy."

"Your family?"

"Yes they are in the Varden. They were with the group of people the elves sent. If I may be so bold, to ask you watch over them, Dragon Rider. It's a woman, with beautiful green eyes, and three little ones."

He hesitates, then nods firmly. "I will do so.'

"Then I am happy."

He fades a little, eyes blurry. He slumps more, unable to stay on his knees.

The Dragon Rider hurries forward, catches him.

His brain is foggy but there are some things he needs to ask.

"Did you…did you really kill…the shade? Durza? The rumors have flown since he disappeared."

"I did."

"Then I thank you, Shadeslayer. Durza was evil incarnated."

He looks up at the boy, who he might have killed so long ago. If he had killed the boy, none of this might have happened. The town might have been spooked. They might have left sooner. He might still be Garrett-who'd-never-killed-a-man.

But he doesn't regret it. Because this boy's destiny was to live past that day. This boy's destiny is far greater than Garrett's. Garrett was but a small piece in the Shadeslayer's life.

He's almost gone, and the roar of the dragon sounds faint on his ears.

"What's it's…name?"

"She. Saphira."

"It suits her."

The Shadeslayer is looking down on him, eyes glum. "I'm sorry."

"Do not be. I only want one," he coughs weakly, breath rasping, "more thing."

"What?"

"Your name."

He's taken aback. That was the last thing he expected. But Garrett is tired of addressing him as 'boy' or 'dragon rider' or 'Shadeslayer'.

"Eragon. My name is Eragon."

"Eragon. Well, it's good to finally put a name to you."

"And your's? What is your name?"

"Does it matter?"

"Always. It always matters."

His pulse is faint, his pupils blown wide.

"Garrett."

Saphira roars at Eragon's pain when the stranger passes. She's fended off the soldiers long enough, and she and Eragon are forced to draw back. Eragon isn't able to grab Garrett's body.

* * *

Hours later, when he's rummaging through the pile of soldiers he can never find the body.

He tries to put it past him, but he never can. He searches for Garrett's family. There are so many refugees in the Varden. So many families. But he finally spots a woman with stunning green eyes, clutching three children to her chest.

He approaches them slowly.

People bow to him, and the woman rises hastily when she sees him coming.

Her face is dark, worn, and tired. But her eyes are just as Garrett described them, green and beautiful.

Eragon doesn't tell them about Garrett, but he smiles. Takes the hand of the little girl, and wishes them all well.

He tells them that their lives would be watched over. That their sacrifices wouldn't be forgotten. He tells them that the ones they had lost along the way would never be forgotten.

Garrett's wife cries and takes his hand, thanking him.

"I have lost my husband, Shadeslayer. Defeat the King for him."

Eragon tries to feel peace.

* * *

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_A/N: So this piece ripped its way through me. It has a life of its own. All and all, I'm pretty fond of it. Hope you like :)_


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